When? The MoU was signed in 2009. USB has been delivering power for much longer than that. This claim the EU politely requested the whole tech industry to deve

When? The MoU was signed in 2009. USB has been delivering power for much longer than that. This claim the EU politely requested the whole tech industry to develop a standardised power cable and they leapt into action because such a brilliant idea had never occurred to anyone before doesn't match the timelines of the actual tech development. USB was around a long time, was happening anyway and the non-binding MoU the EU demanded firms sign had no impact on the only firm that still wanted to do their own cable, as Apple's actions proved quite directly. To re-emphasise the point, if the EU had passed binding regulations like this at an earlier stage in its life we might have never had MagSafe. Or we might have ended up standardising on barrel connectors.